Readers ... Any Kindle users? If so, what is your source of books?

H

helenbacque

Senior Member
Location
Central Florida
I always loved reading 'real' books but arthritis in my hands made me give them up in favor of an e-reader. My choice was a Kindle Paperwhite and I generally download books from the library using the system called Overdrive. Occasionally, I will buy a cheap book from Amazon or accept one of their freebies but find that most of that reading is worth about what it costs so often don't finish the book. I think a lot are self-pubs that would benefit greatly from a good editor. I'm in awe of someone who even attempts to write a book but feel new authors should pay special attention to grammar, spellings, plot and character development, etc. I'm old so time is too limited to read bad books.

Recently moved to central Florida and my new e-library (Orange County) is wonderful. Huge inventory in multiple genres and very liberal borrowing policies. My grandest new thing - my new library card - and best of all, it was free.
 

I get books from the library in Philadelphia and from Amazon -- I just downloaded 32 books for free. I searched free books on the Kindle e-books search and selected books that had reviews of 4 stars and up.
 
I have a Kindle Paperwhite too. It's the nicest way to read that I've come across. I love being able to control the font and size. I have the slim cover that automatically turns it on or off.

Finding free books on the web is kind of a treasure hunt. I enjoy a lot of the classics and they can be found on Project Gutenberg. For newer books, I check out eReaderIQ.com. As you have found, many of them aren't worth reading. But, I have come across some really good ones too.

Amazon has made it very easy for anyone to publish an e-book; unfortunately too easy. So, there is a lot of junk. People can upload a 10 page book that is totally unreadable and set any price they want, and Amazon will allow it. It makes it tough for good books to get noticed. But, there are some if you look for them. and authors often offer one free in order to get reviews and better sales ratings. The more a book sells, the closer it gets to the front of the search results.

You can kind of judge a book by reading the 10% free look inside feature. The really bad ones are obvious.

Don
 

I get all my books from our library as well. They have all I could ever wish for. My only problem is that my library only supports a Kindle Fire so I had to return my Paperwhite that I bought first. I should have checked the library first but as usual with these gizmos I had no idea there could have been a problem. I am going to check again because the Kindle Fire works very well but it is not as light weight as the Paperwhite.
 
Ruth, I'm interested in the fact that your library does not support Kindle Paperwhite as that is the specific Kindle that is for readers such as ourselves as I understand it. Hopefully. that is not a coming trend among libraries. I just used my new library card this afternoon and did a trial download. Worked just fine.

Grandpa D., Project Gutenberg sounds interesting. I'll check it out tomorrow. Thanks for hint.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top